Chicken Minestrone Soup

It is that time of year where I crave soup. The minute the weather goes below 50 degrees, a soup light goes off in my head and all I can think of are the various ingredients I can use to make them.

This hearty soup is filled with healthy ingredients and perfect to serve as a meal. I keep a batch of soup in my refrigerator throughout the fall and winter. This one seems to be one of my family’s favorites.

I do not look at soup as something you can eat before a meal. For me, soup is the main course of the meal. My family loves to have soup with rustic homemade bread. The bread is perfect to dunk in the rich broth.

This soup reminds me of staying at my Italian grandparents’ house while I was a child. My grandmother was an economical cook and minestrone soup was a meal that was not expensive to make, so she made it often. They always had a loaf of Italian bread at dinner every night and bread was dunked in everything from wine to coffee to soup.

I never did get my grandmother’s official minestrone soup recipe but I am not sure she had one written down. I learned to cook from her, and that meant adding whatever vegetable or meat was needed to be used up in the refrigerator.

Over the years this recipe evolved because I wanted to make a healthy minestrone soup with a lean protein. Chicken breast is perfect because it also adds great flavor to the soup. I also use zucchini because we always seem to have an abundance of it. Yellow squash can easily be substituted.

Make this delicious soup to serve on a cold night. If you are as much of a soup fanatic as I am, here are five other soup favorites that can also double as a full meal.